


T.R.I.P.P. Part 1: Behind Blue Eyes: Curriculum Vitae

by BeastofMayhem



Series: T.R.I.P.P [3]
Category: Ghostbusters (2016), Ghostbusters - All Media Types
Genre: Animal Death, Attempted Murder, Blood and Injury, Bullying, Gore, Implied Schitzophrenia, Implied mental illness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-12 15:41:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28512819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeastofMayhem/pseuds/BeastofMayhem
Summary: "I am become Death, the destroyer of Worlds" - J. Robert Oppenheimer quoting the Bhagavad-Gita after seeing the first nuclear explosion“The optimist thinks that this is the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist knows it.” - The same, - Bulletin of Atomic ScientistsWhat make someone want to destroy the world? What catalogue of trauma could turn a highly educated, decorated and accredited scientist down a dark path that would lead him to rend the very fabric of reality in a quest for revenge?And more importantly, is there a possibility he can be stopped?The world is fated to end, but whose hand is pressing the button?The dreams are dreamt. The voices whisper in the dark. And for an unsuspecting, troubled young man from a small town in western Ohio, the journey is just beginning...
Series: T.R.I.P.P [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2087799





	1. Parallel (What dreams may come)

The multiverse is a strange and complex place. The disparity between the different versions of our world can be as vast as a blue whale is to a bowl of geraniums. Alternatively, the timelines of two different Earths can run so closely parallel that the only distinction between them is the placement of a single atom. 

Many stories start the same way. Think of them as trains heading along a railway track. Sometimes the tracks will branch off, head in an another direction. They may even converge at some point further down the line before heading off once more on a new tangent. Most of these trains however, no matter what direction they follow, will end up at the same, terminal, point. 

Those stories end. 

For most if not all, they did not end well.

What if, at some point along the line, an intervention is made. A switch is pulled that caused the train to travel on a new journey, way beyond it's determined terminal point, to a destination that will fundamentally change the nature of the train itself.

This is that story.

All aboard?

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Summer 2016.

It's a warm, dark night in Poughkeepsie. Dr. Rowan North is dreaming of his childhood. He's been dreaming about it since he came back from his trip to Ohio in mid June. The taped brown box from his childhood home, lies unopened on his desk a few feet away. He wonders at the impulse that had taken him back to Middlebury, even though he'd long sworn never to return there. He'd gone to find answers. All he found was more questions. 

Oh, and memories. Lots of memories. Not all of them good. 

In fact he's not pretty sure none them are.

They swim in his unconscious mind, jumbled, fragmented, hazy like smoke. Witnessing them is like looking through frosted glass. He stirs in his sleep, waking briefly as a particularly bad memory surfaces. He looks at the clock on the bedside cabinet. It's still early, before even the first rays of summer sun can peep over the horizon. He makes a mental note to call his therapist in the morning. Maybe she can make sense of them. He turns over and falls back asleep, hoping that the rest of the night will pass dreamlessly.

He's right to be concerned about the dreams that do come however. The memories that prompt them, aren't _exactly_ his own. 

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The world is not kind. 

That was first lesson that Rowan North ever learned. The early years of his life passed innocuously enough. It was not until not long after his second birthday, that, young as he was, he couldn't help but notice a coldness develop between him and his parents. To the outside world, Patrick and Lydia North were the very models of devoted parents, but behind closed doors it was a somewhat different story. Where once there was hugs and smiles, there are now scowls and abject apathy. Sure, he's wasn't neglected, much less abused. He's clean, dressed appropriately and well fed. He was given toys and books with which to entertain and educate himself. His parents taught him to read and write and all the necessary lessons on how to be a functioning human being, but they do not teach him how to love. How can they do this when there is no love to be found? Ever the precocious child, Rowan comes to this sad realisation whilst sitting up in bed, waiting for either one of his parents to come in and read him a bedtime story. He gazes sadly at his bedroom door, but the handle never turns. Nobody enters, not even to wish him goodnight. He doesn't cry out of frustration or loneliness, as other children would do. He merely picks up the book, and reads himself to sleep. As he drifts off, he hears a faint voice whisper in his head. He's unsure of what they say, but the voice is soothing to his troubled mind. That night he dreams of numbers, and the vague patterns they make. Although he is far too young to understand them, he feels comforted by these strange dreams and wakes content. 

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It is quite a disturbing fact that children as young as three or four years old start to pick up traits that one would associate with prejudice. Already in these young minds, the seeds of hatred are germinating, preparing the way for a harvest of bitter fruit.

Rowan was certain he hadn't done anything wrong to earn the enmity that the other first graders seemed to display against him. Sure, he was more intellectual advanced than the average child from semi-rural Ohio, but he was never proud about it, never boastful. His dark auburn hair, pale skin and large blue-grey eyes wouldn't usually be so noticeable in a county that had a higher-than-state average population of Irish decent. It always puzzled him why the other children tended to avoid him in class, despite the fact he was courteous and at least outwardly affable. It was like his whole being generated an deep rooted aura of mistrust in his classmates. He learned all too quickly to avoid the outstretched legs eager to trip him up in the hallways and classrooms, to check his back for post it notes with crudely written messages upon them, and to dodge the barrage of spit balls that always seem to be targeted at his head. 

Rowan's first taste of real physical violence came when he was seven years old. One of his class mates, Michael Devarro was given a Rubik's cube for his birthday. He worked at it feverously, obsessively, but no matter how much he twisted and turned the infernal thing, he could never align the cube into the correct pattern. On more than one occasion the teacher, Ms. Davidoff, had to confiscate the toy due to Michael's continued distraction in class. Things come to head during recess a few days later, in a fit of audible rage, Michael hurled the partially completed cube into the sand at the foot of the Jungle Gym, where he'd been sat on a high platform near the slide. Rowan had been sitting on a nearby bench, quietly reading, occasionally avoiding the trajectory of several kick balls that been "accidentally" aimed at his head, when he was distracted in his literary pursuits by Michael’s tantrum. He put down his book, casually sauntered over to where the cube was lying and picked it up, dusted the sand from it and turned it over in his hands. His fingers moved swiftly over the segments with a calm stoicism that would envy an Ancient Greek. Michael, still burning with childish rage, climbed down from the platform and stormed over to where Rowan was standing. 

"Hey weirdo, give that back! It's mine!" 

“Sure.” One deft flick from his wrist and he handed the now completed puzzle back to Michael with a shy smile.

"I could show you how to do it, if you like."

His smile quickly dissipated when he saw the look of absolute fury on Michael's face. Michael snatched the cube and shoved Rowan heavily backwards into the sand. He then stood over him, the arm holding the cube high above his head. Rowan skittled in the sand, struggling to get to his feet. He rises to flee, but alas, he doesn’t get very far. 

A few moments later Ms. Cranford, the recess monitor, found Rowan face down and silently sobbing on the perimeter between the Jungle Gym and the schoolyard, shattered segments of multi-coloured plastic haloing his head.

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That night lying in bed, trying to sleep though the back of his head was still rather sore, Rowan hears the voice, or rather voices, again. They time they are more distinct. 

_They will pay for what they do._

_You will make them pay._

_We will have our revenge._

_Follow the path. Tread in our footsteps and we shall show you the way._

_Trust in your abilities and the universe shall bend before your will ___

__That night he dreams of machines, machines that he has designed and built. Polished chrome and copper flashing in the darkness, there's a smell of ozone in the air, and the feeling of the machines' distant pounding syncing with his heartbeat.  
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__

__Later that year, during a lunch break on a field trip to Cincinnati Zoo, taking advantage of the adult supervisors being momentarily distracted, Nina Soper grabbed his lunch bag and ran off with it. He finally caught up with her outside the gorilla enclosure, to see her fling his barely eaten repast as far as she could into the pit below._ _

"Go and get your dinner, Monkey Brain!" she hollered before tearing off again. 

When he trudged back empty handed to the outside dining area, he was pulled aside and given a very strict lecture from the head supervisor, Mr. Carter, for running off. Trudging back to his table, to the schadenfreude cackles of his fellow students he passed Nina, who on stuffing the last of her sandwich into her mouth, gave him a large messy grin.

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April 1987. 

School had let out for the day, and the janitor, Joe Kirsch had just pushed his cleaning cart out of the ground floor girls toilet, when he hears the banging on one of the locker doors a little further down the corridor. Joe's not a superstitious man. He knows this isn't some ghost haunting his footsteps. He's worked around children for long enough now to know that this is some ridiculous prank. Even so as he traversed down the hall way, he gripped the handle of the mop tightly as he brandished it in front of him. The banging started a second time. After a few seconds a sad, querulous voice echoed in the empty hallway. "Is anybody there? Please, anybody! Can you get me out of here?" The banging started again, this time a little more frantically. "Please, anybody Help!" Joe walked over to the set of lockers he thought is the source of the commotion. He taps on each metal door in turn. 

"Is there someone in there?"

About the fourth locker along, someone tapped back.

Joe fished out a flashlight from a recess on his his cart and tried to shine it into the vents at the front of the door, but the angle was wrong and he couldn't see anything.

"Is that you Mr. Kirsch?" the voice wavered. 

"E-yup. What's your name, son?"

"Rowan, sir. Rowan North. Could you please let me out?"

"North, did you say? Are you Pat and Lydia's kid?"

There was a pause. Then a very audible sigh. "Yes, sir. Those are my folks." The voice sounded sad, and rather tired.

"Well ain't that something! I don't know your Daddy much, but your momma used to teach my girls at St Michael's over in Lima"

"Yeah, small world." Rowan's voice had noticeable gone from pleading to slightly petulant, even sarcastic. "Eh, Mr. Kirsch....could...could....you...let me out now?"

"Oh, yeah, sure thing, kid." Joe fumbled for the slim skeleton key on the oversized bunch at his waist. He slid it home and jiggles it a little. 

The door swings open Rowan tumbles out. His clothing is torn, and spattered with mud and grass stains. There are fresh bruises on his arms and small twigs and buckeye blossoms caught in his curly auburn hair. The kid is a mess. Joe helps him to his feet. 

"Now how in the Sam Hill did you end up in that there locker, Mr. North?"

Rowan takes a deep breath and stammers "There was these fifth graders hanging around outside. I was just on my way home and they just grabbed me. They wanted money. I told them I didn't have any. They knocked me around for a bit, then dragged me back in here and shoved me in a locker". 

"Little bastards!" grunt Joe. He bites his tongue immediately. "Excuse my language." 

"It's ok Mr. Kirsch. I've heard worse hearing my dad arguing with Grandpa over the phone."

"Buses will gone by now, and it's getting dark. Should I call your parents, tell them to pick you up? They must be worried sick." 

Rowan lowered his gaze to the polished linoleum floor. What he said next was probably one of the saddest things Joe ever heard and gave him a vague indication of what life was really like at the North household. "They're wouldn't be anyone there if you did. Dad doesn't get home from Fort Wayne until the evening, and Mom has after school tutorials tonight. If I'm ever late home, they'd probably think I was spending time at the library again." In a lower tone Rowan added, "I spend a lot of time at the library. To tell you the truth, as long as I'm home before sundown, they don't really get worried at all.

Joe escorted Rowan to the front of the school and unlocked the door. He still felt uneasy about letting the kid go, but the little guy was adamant. Sure, Middlebury was a safe town, but you did hear rumours about shady things happening now and again. Before he let him go he crouched down at the top of the stairway and looked Rowan straight in the eye.

"Are you sure you don't want me to do anything?"

"My house is only a few blocks from here. I'll be fine"

"Famous last words." Rowan merely shrugged. "You best run on home then, Mr. North." Rowan puts his hand out to shake. "Thank you Mr. Kirsch." It's a touching gesture to a man who spends most of his day being virtual ignored by the student body. Joe gave it a brief squeeze, before watching Rowan bound down the exterior stairs and retreat into the distance. He watched until he could no longer see him, then closed and locked the door. 

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	2. Parallel (Camp Anderson Part 1)

Summer 1989.  
Rowan is nearly eleven years old, and he's still pretty much a lonely child. Desperate for him to make friends before he starts Middle School in September (and despite his protests), his parents sent him off to Camp Anderson near Lacarpe Creek on the shores of Lake Erie. To make matters worse the itinerary at this camp is geared towards outdoor recreational pursuits. For Rowan, having more of an academic mindset, this is a nightmare. This summer is going even more infernal than usual

Despite his parent's best wishes, Rowan doesn't really find friends there, but does find a new antagonist in the form of a thirteen year old Clevelander called Leon Lange. Blond, blue eyed and athletically gifted, he is the apple of everyone's eye, the top dog, the camp champ. The sort of guy that most girls have desperate crushes on. Perhaps this is due to his charisma, his prowess at sports or his general handsomeness. Or maybe because the construction company his millionaire father owns is one of the main sponsors of the camp. He makes it noticeably clear that he is the one in charge here, not the councillors nor the administrators, who bend over backward to accommodate him and clearly turn a blind eye to his each and every one of his “foibles”. 

Rowan sees Lange for what he really is; a spoilt, overprivileged, ill-mannered brat. He’s seen plenty of this category at school, usually the ones that shoved him up against the lockers, flushed his head in a toilet, menaced him for money and left him broken and bruised when he refused to pay up. Worst of all these are the sort of people who manage to gaslight the teachers, or any authority figure for that matter, into believing that they are the ones in the right. 

Maybe it is simply because he’s the new boy, not being a city type like so many of the other inhabitants of Camp Anderson, that Lange takes such a huge aversion to Rowan. It may simply be that even from the offset, Rowan, due his insight into human behaviour, simply refuses to bow down at the “Temple of Leon”. Lange’s influence runs deep at the camp, and so does his malice. This malice would manifest in small ways at first. He would frequently find little surprises waiting for him when he went to bed in the evening. It started with pinecones and holly leaves, bits of straw. As the weeks passed, he would find poison oak leaves, dried horse manure, used sanitary products or the odd desiccated remains of small rodents folded between the sheets. Things came to a head when one Friday in mid July when turning back the blanket, he'd found a Ring Necked Snake. Though this particular snake was harmless, Rowan had ran terrified from the dormitory cabin. The small group of teenage councillors who were assembled for night duty, watched him fleeing barefoot and screaming in the direction of the lake. They found him huddled, exhausted and shaking on the shoreline. When he was returned to the cabin, still barely able to talk, the serpent was long gone. When questioned by the councillors, the next morning, it became clear to Rowan that the other boys in the dorm had conspired to make it look like he was lying, that he was attention seeking.

"There was no snake," they said. "I didn't see any snake."

The upside to this that for the next few days, Rowan was able to come back to an clean empty bed. The down side was that Leon's malevolence had garnered a mistrust for Rowan amongst the counselling staff. With this now in place, Leon's assault on Rowan could go pretty much unabated. By the time the weekend rolled around he was finding pinecones in his bedsheets again.

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End file.
